The Melville Charitable Trust, which supports solutions to prevent and end homelessness, is an early philanthropic supporter of the CSH Social Innovation Fund Initiative.
The backing of the Trust helps CSH promote stable housing as well as access to integrated healthcare for individuals with high levels of medical fragility. As an intermediary for the national Social Innovation Fund, CSH is testing groundbreaking supportive housing models addressing the health, housing, and social service needs of homeless individuals struggling with complex health challenges who also are the highest-cost users of crisis health services.
Supportive housing is a data-driven, evidence-based solution we know works to end homelessness and improve lives because the housing and services are so closely coordinated and tailored to meet needs of the residents.
CSH aims to demonstrate how supportive housing can break the expensive cycle that sees homeless people repeatedly encountering institutional systems – hospital emergency rooms, detox centers – without any marked improvement in their long-term health and stability. These men and women are often referred to as the 5:50 population – the 5% of beneficiaries who represent 50% of the costs – and their disproportionate share of resources is due to the fact that homelessness exacerbates health issues, limits access to care, and inhibits healthy behaviors.
The CSH Social Innovation Fund Initiative has active pilots in Connecticut, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Ann Arbor, Michigan.
The Melville Charitable Trust and CSH share the goals of ensuring homeless people have the housing and services the need to keep them housed and on the road to long-term stability.
